


for the honeysuckle's nectar is just too sweet

by mido



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: F/F, Gen, Stalking, excessive violence against camellias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 04:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18931108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mido/pseuds/mido
Summary: Aika wouldn't call it a crush. No, Aika would call it an obsession, were she a bit less refined than she is.





	for the honeysuckle's nectar is just too sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryfortune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryfortune/gifts).



> thank you @merryfortune for sending me this pairing!! this fic is a bit dark, but i'm pleased with how it came out. i should write more frozenflower.....

The peach trees in the courtyard are blooming. 

 

Aika feels somewhat proud seeing those bright pink blossoms swaying in the cool breeze, their petals fluttering like maidens dancing a ritual dance to stave off another frosty winter night, as if that were even a concern at this point in the year. Brainless young girls, holding hands with one another gently as if that could ever stop the frigid blade of a malevolent freeze.

 

A dot of sky blue catches her eye from nearby where her stupid children are rooted. Aika’s gaze softens-- the blizzard has come to wipe her maternal slate clean once more. Beside her is the familiar shape of a killer whale, rather than the shark one would expect. Aika had always seen him as a little unlike the nickname he used so fondly; then again, few saw her as delicate as her surname implied. Her leopard gaze follow the two gazelles to where they meet with the rest of the herd, closing their eyes in shows of trust as they affectionately knock their horns together with one another. Aika licks her lower lip and bites the inside of her cheek as they make chittering noises at each other like the ignorant prey they are.

 

She turns away from the window, and removes her shears from their leather sheath hidden beneath her obi.  _ Snip snip _ as she elegantly yet aggressively slashes away the leaves of a camellia, potted on her lap.  _ Snip snip  _ as she evenly, desperately slices its skin from its body. The blizzard has come, that’s for sure. It’s just not the same one as before, Aika believes.

 

_ Kamishiro Rio _ . Her name is less than sightly, not as beautiful as Aika’s (the fact that her surname contains the kanji for ‘flower’ is something she’s always considered herself blessed with), but it was enough to work with. The name “Kamishiro” only roused thoughts of the offensively defenseless orca, however, so Rio will have to do, Aika supposes. She refuses to let  the beauty of the fallen snowflake be tainted by an image so misshapen as Ryouga’s is. When Rio is hers, caged in all her icy glory, she can take Aika’s surname.

 

_ Snip snip, snip snip. _ Soon there will be nothing left but the stem as Aika resorts to placing her shears on the floor where she sits on her feet and begins to pull the petals from the blossom. Somehow her mind runs miles with the muscle memory of the action.  _ She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me. _

 

It’s not Rio, nor the whale, nor any of their ragtag team of annoyances who notices first, though. It’s none other than Shingetsu Rei, the newest edition somewhat resembling a certain vegetable more than a middle school boy with spiky hair. “Welcome, Shingetsu.” She greets him with false warmth, and according to his expression he sees through it without so much as blinking. Perhaps the lack of an honorific was overkill. “Hanazoe-san.” He says back, though it sounds more like he’s simply stating her name than returning her greeting.

 

“How may I assist you today? Perhaps you’ve come to see my flowers?” She wonders aloud, yet too refined to sound aloof as she runs her fingertips gently over a chrysanthemum, as if making sure it’s real despite her having planted it. “May I presume you’re looking for a club application?” She looks back up at him with eyes half-lidded with a knowing look hiding behind her irises, bringing her hand behind her and lacing it with her other. She smiles a smile devoid of anything, much less warmth or deceit.

 

Shingetsu says nothing for a beat, but he pipes up a moment later. “Where are your other club members?” He asks innocently, watching her with an expression unreadable below his facade. Aika bites the inside of her lip, inconspicuously enough that he doesn’t notice. “They’re off at that nursery nearby at the moment; I had volunteered to stay behind to tend to the flowers.” She answers easily, returning her gaze to the chrysanthemum beside her, seated beside a stargazer lily. Shingetsu follows her eyes down to the blooms, colored in vibrant orange and reddish-pink respectively as if Aika had painted them just moments before he’d arrived. She caresses their petals carefully, knowing that if she touches them too much they’ll wilt prematurely, yet he notices a restrained nature to her movements, as if she’s holding herself back from ripping them to pieces. Surely she didn’t expect him to believe she truly cared for those shards of life, pulled from birth to come live in an oversized terrarium. Surely she realized why she played the part.

 

“Aren’t you lonely, Hanazoe-san?” He asks, the facade on his face showing the feeling for  _ embarrassed  _ like a dictionary when he claps a hand over his mouth for show. Aika rolls her eyes inwardly and plays along, narrowing her eyes at him and folding her hands in front of her. “Whatever do you mean?” She inquires, her voice as velvety smooth as always, but Shingetsu knows a liar when he hears one. Takes one to know one. “I mean, your club had no qualms about leaving you all alone? Isn’t that lonely? You have the plants, but you know.” He shrugs.

 

Aika touches a delicately manicured finger to her chin as if she’s considering his words (the exact opposite of what she’s doing, actually), and makes a soft noise of thoughtfulness. “I’m not lonely.” She says, still with the silky tone no matter how authoritative her words. “I prefer their company.” She gestures to the potted flowers lining the windowsill. There is no camellia among them. Shingetsu blinks at her, and his script says to rub the back of his neck sheepishly, as he does. “It’s alright, Hanazoe-san.” He murmurs then, and for a split-second, she can see through the miniscule cracks where the eyeholes in his mask should be. He’s smiling, all malice. “I won’t tell a soul.” 

 

He’s gone before she can begin to wonder how he figured it out from such an off topic conversation.  _ Perhaps it wasn’t,  _ she thinks, miffed.  _ Perhaps that’s his method. _

 

While she does stew for a solid couple days over the exchange, Aika eventually falls back into her routine. Watch the frost on the windows return and melt and return again every time a thought crosses her mind, mist the flowers inside and water the ones outside, snip away at the life of another camellia. This one happens to be yellow. 

 

Rio, in all her frigid glory, is too busy with decimating the clubs begging for her entry to notice the massacred plants following her wherever she goes. Aika takes care to place one on the floor beneath her chair in her classroom at one point, but perhaps the title ‘ice queen’ is not for show, because the poor flower receives nothing but the cold shoulder. Aika finds herself becoming more and more brazen, after that-- a petal falls out of her sleeve when she slips into the girls’ changing room for gym to open Rio’s locker, and another when she quietly rifles through Rio’s desk while her class is occupied elsewhere. Maybe her beloved snowstorm catches on, or maybe it’s just her nature when she freezes them, shattering the petals beneath her heel and paying no mind to the sound that makes Aika flinch.

 

There’s nowhere to go but down from here, Aika knows. She’s well aware the only part of their dance left is for her to be caught. 

 

And get caught she does; just, not by Rio herself. The cat hisses when she walks into the locker room only to get an eyeful of Aika pressing her nose to Rio’s uniform. Aika folds and lowers the garment back into its rightful place carefully, only to fix Cathy with a glare like a dagger when she turns to the other. “That’s Rio-san’s locker!” She exclaims loudly, and Aika feels a vein pop in her patience, already. “I hadn’t noticed.” Aika mutters.

 

The monochromatic girl blinks, then points a clawed finger at Aika. “You’re a stalker, aren’t you?!” She declares, again, louder than necessary considering Aika’s proximity. The latter just sighs and places a hand on her hip, looking annoyed. “I’d prefer you didn’t call me such unsightly names.” She doesn’t bother addressing Cathy by name-- she feels like that’s an indicator of more respect than she has for the feline. “And I’d prefer you quit yelling in my ear.”

 

Cathy bristles at the mention of her volume, and she looks like she’s about to shout something more when Aika decides that talking has become loathsome. She pulls her shears, shining brilliantly under the fluorescent locker room lights, from their sheath, effectively ceasing the cat’s mewing. “Katherine, I’d prefer you kept this to yourself.” Aika smiles a tight-lipped smile at her, folding her hands in front of her and still holding her shears, the point glimmering in Cathy’s direction. “I have business to attend to elsewhere, so do me a favor and keep your hissing to yourself, won’t you?” Aika begins to walk towards the exit, the shears’ handle held in her right hand as she gracefully moves from the scene of the crime.

 

“Don’t think you’ll get away with this!” The kitten stage-whispers, clearly still self conscious from Aika mentioning her noise level. She stalks away on her hind legs, and Aika watches her go, watching as whatever she came into the locker room for is quickly forgotten. The former wonders if amateur lobotomies are the way to go.

 

Stalker or not, Aika continues as she had before. Cathy and Shingetsu seem to manage to keep their mouths shut, and the thought of performing their own individual lobotomies is soon discarded in favor of misting her flowers’ soil. However, as she’s moving from pot to pot, she notices with horror that one of her gardenias has wilted. She inspects the leaves, and surely enough, some kind of pest has managed to chew through the outer portion of the stem, leaving it without protection to bacteria and danger (although Aika doubts nature’s evil would reach it from behind the club room windows). 

 

She touches a delicate fingertip to its sad, wrinkled petals, and much to her dismay the blossom falls over without further notice, burying its face into the dirt below. Aika glances out the window, unable to observe her child’s slow death, and only then does she realize that her stupid, stupid peach trees have been frozen in place. She’d thought it had been a bit early for them to bloom-- the danger of a nightfrost hadn’t even passed. Yet they stand there swaying in the breeze, their frozen flowers disconnecting from the branches easily and falling, falling, falling, only to be smashed under an unsuspecting student’s shoe. Aika feels a singular tear well up in her eye, but she dabs it away before it can ruin her makeup. 

 

_ Snip snip _ is the sound of her shears slashing away at a orange camellia, wrecking it within an inch of its life.  _ Snip snip  _ as she turns her back to the window, hiding from the rest of the world.  _ Snip snip  _ as a pair of bloody eyes watches her from outside, crushing a peach blossom under her heel.  _ Snip snip  _ as the blizzard looks down at the flower she’s destroyed, and  _ snip snip  _ as she grinds it against the ground beneath her shoe.


End file.
